8 ms·

> The modern web is opt-in. I build and use sites that aren’t SPAs and shitted up with 3p resources and images and code. That is a microscopic subset of the mo

> The modern web is opt-in. I build and use sites that aren’t SPAs and shitted up with 3p resources and images and code. That is a microscopic subset of the modern web. I don't use Gemini— though I am highly tempted —but I expect some of the attraction is that you can click on any link and pretty much guaranteed not to be socked in the face with a sign-up-for-my-newsletter or cookies-accept-all-yes-later or paragraph-ad-paragraph-ad-paragraph-ad or fiddling with NoScript to find the minimum amount of Javascript that will let you read some article that looks interesting. In Gemini, all that friction just goes away.

sneak 1y ago
You can achieve that on HTTP with a browser extension or customized browser that checks for certain tags in the page, or disables certain features altogether. It isn’t the transport’s fault.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  With all respect, this viewpoint rivals the infamous Dropbox comment.
  - rglullis 1y ago
    Problem: you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work? A) Develop a whole new transport protocol that does less than HTTP, develop client applications that use this protocol, convince a sufficient number of people to use this protocol, at least to the point where the majority of your activity happens there? or B) Install a handful of browser extensions that block ads and other nuisances on the modern www, and have it working right away?
    - uamgeoalsk 1y ago
      What's more fun? Definitely A.
      - rglullis 1y ago
        You are not solving the stated problem. You are just admitting that working on a new protocol is a masturbatory, "the journey is the reward" kind of exercise.
        uamgeoalsk 1y ago
        I'm not aiming to solve the stated problem, I'm having fun with gemini.
    - shakna 1y ago
      Considering "B" is becoming less possible, thanks to Google dropping Manifest 2, and going out of their way to enforce a lot more tracking, "A" looks like a lot less effort - you don't have to fight FAANG.
      - rglullis 1y ago
        Chrome is not the only browser out there. Firefox is still a good browser. If you depend on Chromium: Brave is keeping Manifest v2 and their ad-blocking extensions work out of the box.
        shakna 1y ago
        And HTTP is not the only protocol out there. Plenty of others exist. Like Gemini, that has multiple browser implementations. What's your point, exactly?
        rglullis 1y ago
        My point is that the choice of protocol (much like the browser) is not a relevant factor if your goal is to be able to participate in the www without dealing with the issues. We can have all the upside of an http-based web, without dealing with the downsides. The converse is not true. A Gemini network is by design limited in functionality, which is a downside that can not be mitigated.
        Gormo 1y ago
        > My point is that the choice of protocol (much like the browser) is not a relevant factor if your goal is to be able to participate in the www without dealing with the issues. Right, but that isn't the goal of Gemini. It's goal is to create a distinct ecosystem, not to participate in the existing one with marginally less annoyance.
        rglullis 1y ago
        Even worse! This makes the whole proposal even more misguided. Different ecosystems only make sense when we have distinct populations that might be as well considered different species.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      Option “B” implies a cat and mouse game, which you can never win. You can’t win a game designed and implemented by a mega corporation which is specially made to earn them money and protect their monopoly by being reactive and defending all the time. Instead you have to change the game and play with your own rules. That’s option “A”.
      - rglullis 1y ago
        > Instead you have to change the game and play with your own rules. That only works if you can convince the a substantial part of the participants to also play your game. It's very easy to create an alternative internet where we can take away the power from incumbents. The hard part is creating all the activity that is taking place in the current one. "Oh, but I can mirror the parts I want from the current internet into the new one!" Not without playing into the same cat-and-mouse game.
        bayindirh 1y ago
        Who says I'm trying to pull in everyone from the old internet to the new internet (Gemini)? If the people I care comes along, that's enough for me, and it's up to them. For example, I switched to Mastodon, and follow people who I really want to follow are already there, plus I met a ton of interesting people, and was able to see real forms of people I followed before, so I have updated my views on them. > "Oh, but I can mirror the parts I want from the current internet into the new one!" Personally, I see Gemini or other protocols as equals to HTTP/S. For example, my blog is already text in most cases, has a full content RSS feed, so, also publishing a Gemini version is not mirroring what's on the web already, just adding another medium to my blog. If I was pumping a 3rd party site I don't own from web to Gemini with a tool, then you'd be right, but publishing to Gemini is not different than having a RSS feed in my case.
        rglullis 1y ago
        > For example, I switched to Mastodon (...) and was able to see real forms of people I followed before, so I have updated my views on them. Isn't that strong evidence that it is possible to have a "human-scale" web built on HTTP, and consequently that there is not much benefit in restricting yourself to a protocol that is designed to be limited? > Personally, I see Gemini or other protocols as equals to HTTP/S Except they are not. Maybe it can do enough of the things that you care about, but Gemini is (by design!) meant to do less than HTTP. > publishing to Gemini is not different than having a RSS feed in my case. Again: if all you want is to be able to publish something in a simple format, then why should we care about the transport protocol? I get the whole "the medium is the message" idea, I really do. I get that people want a simpler web and I look forward to a time where we have applications developed at a more "human scale". But I really don't get why we would have to deliberately be stripping ourselves of so much power and potential. Talking about Gemini as the best solution to the problems of the modern web is like saying we should wear chastity belts to deal with teenage pregnancies.
    - _Algernon_ 1y ago
      The benefit with A is that it also removes higher order effects of the modern web. You may for example remove adverts by installing an ad blocker, but that wont change the incentives that advertising creates (eg. clickbait, engagement maximizing, etc.). With A you can guarantee that the content is not shaped by these incentives.
      - rglullis 1y ago
        > With A you can guarantee that the content is not shaped by these incentives. Without those incentives, you will quickly find out that there will not be much of an Internet out there. If you don't believe me, check how many people are on YouTube talking about Open Source, when PeerTube exists and already can reach millions of people.
        _Algernon_ 1y ago
        The internet and web existed for a long time before everything became infested with advertisement: Hobbyist bulletin boards, Wikipedia, the blogosphere, etc. These had enough content that a single person couldn't consume it all in a lifetime.
        rglullis 1y ago
        That internet was also only interesting and valuable to a fraction of the people who use it today. And if you don't care about that and you are thinking from what you might get out of it: an internet where 99% of the content is crap but universal will end up with more valuable content than a neutered internet that can prevent the emergence of crap, but is tailored to appeal only to 1% of the people. IOW, no one cares about reading all of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia would never reach the size it has if it was something only for a handful of individuals obsessed about their particular hobbies.
        uamgeoalsk 1y ago
        A movie theater where 99% of the movies are crap but universal is less interesting to me than a well curated cinematheque. What I'm wondering is why do you feel the need to dismiss people's niche interests like this? You've even been rude about it in other answers, calling it "masturbatory". Not everything has to be for everyone. Not everything has to be for you.
    - Gormo 1y ago
      The answer is "A". Perhaps some people are avoiding saying this too explicitly because it might sound a bit elitist, but I'll put how I see it as frankly as possible for the sake of clarity. Gemini is not trying to solve a technical problem with the web. Is trying to solve a cultural problem that arises from the web having become a mass medium, in which every site's focus gradually erodes under pressure to optimize to the lowest common denominator. Creating a new protocol from the ground up, and requiring users to install a distinct client to access it, isn't just about keeping the software aligned with the project's goals, it's about creating a sufficient threshold of thought and effort for participation that limits the audience to people who are making a deliberate decision to participate. It's about avoiding Eternal September, not about creating a parallel mass-market competitor to the web. It's not about blocking the annoying ads, popups, and trackers, just to access sites where the content itself is full of spam, scams, political arguments, LLM slop, and other assorted nonsense, and instead creating an ecosystem that's "air-gapped" away from all that stuff, filled with thoughtful content produced deliberately by individuals. It's about collecting needles together away from the hay.
    - zzo38computer 1y ago
      In some ways, A is easier, but not in all ways. Each has its own difficulties. These are not the only possibilities, though; a third possibility might be: C) Make a simpler set of features which are compatible with some parts of WWW and implement that. However, you can do two or all three things if you want to do; you are not limited to doing only one thing. I think all three of these (A, B, C) have their own benefits, so you don't need only one.

sneak 1y ago

You can achieve that on HTTP with a browser extension or customized browser that checks for certain tags in the page, or disables certain features altogether. It isn’t the transport’s fault.

bayindirh 1y ago
With all respect, this viewpoint rivals the infamous Dropbox comment.
- rglullis 1y ago
  Problem: you are looking for a way to get rid of the annoying issues of the modern www. What is the solution that solves this with the least amount of work? A) Develop a whole new transport protocol that does less than HTTP, develop client applications that use this protocol, convince a sufficient number of people to use this protocol, at least to the point where the majority of your activity happens there? or B) Install a handful of browser extensions that block ads and other nuisances on the modern www, and have it working right away?
  - uamgeoalsk 1y ago
    What's more fun? Definitely A.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      You are not solving the stated problem. You are just admitting that working on a new protocol is a masturbatory, "the journey is the reward" kind of exercise.
      - uamgeoalsk 1y ago
        I'm not aiming to solve the stated problem, I'm having fun with gemini.
  - shakna 1y ago
    Considering "B" is becoming less possible, thanks to Google dropping Manifest 2, and going out of their way to enforce a lot more tracking, "A" looks like a lot less effort - you don't have to fight FAANG.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      Chrome is not the only browser out there. Firefox is still a good browser. If you depend on Chromium: Brave is keeping Manifest v2 and their ad-blocking extensions work out of the box.
      - shakna 1y ago
        And HTTP is not the only protocol out there. Plenty of others exist. Like Gemini, that has multiple browser implementations. What's your point, exactly?
        rglullis 1y ago
        My point is that the choice of protocol (much like the browser) is not a relevant factor if your goal is to be able to participate in the www without dealing with the issues. We can have all the upside of an http-based web, without dealing with the downsides. The converse is not true. A Gemini network is by design limited in functionality, which is a downside that can not be mitigated.
        Gormo 1y ago
        > My point is that the choice of protocol (much like the browser) is not a relevant factor if your goal is to be able to participate in the www without dealing with the issues. Right, but that isn't the goal of Gemini. It's goal is to create a distinct ecosystem, not to participate in the existing one with marginally less annoyance.
        rglullis 1y ago
        Even worse! This makes the whole proposal even more misguided. Different ecosystems only make sense when we have distinct populations that might be as well considered different species.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    Option “B” implies a cat and mouse game, which you can never win. You can’t win a game designed and implemented by a mega corporation which is specially made to earn them money and protect their monopoly by being reactive and defending all the time. Instead you have to change the game and play with your own rules. That’s option “A”.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      > Instead you have to change the game and play with your own rules. That only works if you can convince the a substantial part of the participants to also play your game. It's very easy to create an alternative internet where we can take away the power from incumbents. The hard part is creating all the activity that is taking place in the current one. "Oh, but I can mirror the parts I want from the current internet into the new one!" Not without playing into the same cat-and-mouse game.
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        Who says I'm trying to pull in everyone from the old internet to the new internet (Gemini)? If the people I care comes along, that's enough for me, and it's up to them. For example, I switched to Mastodon, and follow people who I really want to follow are already there, plus I met a ton of interesting people, and was able to see real forms of people I followed before, so I have updated my views on them. > "Oh, but I can mirror the parts I want from the current internet into the new one!" Personally, I see Gemini or other protocols as equals to HTTP/S. For example, my blog is already text in most cases, has a full content RSS feed, so, also publishing a Gemini version is not mirroring what's on the web already, just adding another medium to my blog. If I was pumping a 3rd party site I don't own from web to Gemini with a tool, then you'd be right, but publishing to Gemini is not different than having a RSS feed in my case.
        rglullis 1y ago
        > For example, I switched to Mastodon (...) and was able to see real forms of people I followed before, so I have updated my views on them. Isn't that strong evidence that it is possible to have a "human-scale" web built on HTTP, and consequently that there is not much benefit in restricting yourself to a protocol that is designed to be limited? > Personally, I see Gemini or other protocols as equals to HTTP/S Except they are not. Maybe it can do enough of the things that you care about, but Gemini is (by design!) meant to do less than HTTP. > publishing to Gemini is not different than having a RSS feed in my case. Again: if all you want is to be able to publish something in a simple format, then why should we care about the transport protocol? I get the whole "the medium is the message" idea, I really do. I get that people want a simpler web and I look forward to a time where we have applications developed at a more "human scale". But I really don't get why we would have to deliberately be stripping ourselves of so much power and potential. Talking about Gemini as the best solution to the problems of the modern web is like saying we should wear chastity belts to deal with teenage pregnancies.
  - _Algernon_ 1y ago
    The benefit with A is that it also removes higher order effects of the modern web. You may for example remove adverts by installing an ad blocker, but that wont change the incentives that advertising creates (eg. clickbait, engagement maximizing, etc.). With A you can guarantee that the content is not shaped by these incentives.
    - rglullis 1y ago
      > With A you can guarantee that the content is not shaped by these incentives. Without those incentives, you will quickly find out that there will not be much of an Internet out there. If you don't believe me, check how many people are on YouTube talking about Open Source, when PeerTube exists and already can reach millions of people.
      - _Algernon_ 1y ago
        The internet and web existed for a long time before everything became infested with advertisement: Hobbyist bulletin boards, Wikipedia, the blogosphere, etc. These had enough content that a single person couldn't consume it all in a lifetime.
        rglullis 1y ago
        That internet was also only interesting and valuable to a fraction of the people who use it today. And if you don't care about that and you are thinking from what you might get out of it: an internet where 99% of the content is crap but universal will end up with more valuable content than a neutered internet that can prevent the emergence of crap, but is tailored to appeal only to 1% of the people. IOW, no one cares about reading all of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia would never reach the size it has if it was something only for a handful of individuals obsessed about their particular hobbies.
        uamgeoalsk 1y ago
        A movie theater where 99% of the movies are crap but universal is less interesting to me than a well curated cinematheque. What I'm wondering is why do you feel the need to dismiss people's niche interests like this? You've even been rude about it in other answers, calling it "masturbatory". Not everything has to be for everyone. Not everything has to be for you.
  - Gormo 1y ago
    The answer is "A". Perhaps some people are avoiding saying this too explicitly because it might sound a bit elitist, but I'll put how I see it as frankly as possible for the sake of clarity. Gemini is not trying to solve a technical problem with the web. Is trying to solve a cultural problem that arises from the web having become a mass medium, in which every site's focus gradually erodes under pressure to optimize to the lowest common denominator. Creating a new protocol from the ground up, and requiring users to install a distinct client to access it, isn't just about keeping the software aligned with the project's goals, it's about creating a sufficient threshold of thought and effort for participation that limits the audience to people who are making a deliberate decision to participate. It's about avoiding Eternal September, not about creating a parallel mass-market competitor to the web. It's not about blocking the annoying ads, popups, and trackers, just to access sites where the content itself is full of spam, scams, political arguments, LLM slop, and other assorted nonsense, and instead creating an ecosystem that's "air-gapped" away from all that stuff, filled with thoughtful content produced deliberately by individuals. It's about collecting needles together away from the hay.
  - zzo38computer 1y ago
    In some ways, A is easier, but not in all ways. Each has its own difficulties. These are not the only possibilities, though; a third possibility might be: C) Make a simpler set of features which are compatible with some parts of WWW and implement that. However, you can do two or all three things if you want to do; you are not limited to doing only one thing. I think all three of these (A, B, C) have their own benefits, so you don't need only one.